Note: For useful tips and information on how this case study is organized, please see the Reader's Guide. To read a brief overview of the activities of the IMPULSE program, see the Introduction.
The IMPULSE program operates within in the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth (UMD) College of Engineering, which includes the Physics Department. (For more on UMD, see Resource A. Institutional Context.) UMD's IMPULSE program initially was funded in part by the Davis Foundation, which provides grants to institutions of higher education in the New England area in support of educational improvement efforts, and by UMD. Additional funding to launch the program was provided by a second grant from the Davis Foundation and by the NSF-funded Foundation Coalition, one of several NSF-funded multi-campus coalitions designed to improve student retention and learning in engineering. The Foundation Coalition, like the other coalitions in this NSF program, takes as one of its key principles the use of
collaborative learning2.
For a very useful history of the IMPULSE Program, see Discussion 1. History of the IMPULSE Program.
Dramatis Personae
The IMPULSE faculty work as a team to provide an integrated learning experience for their students. To this end, they maintain a high level of interaction with each other, meeting weekly to plan curricular modifications and to discuss student progress, and occasionally stopping in on each other's IMPULSE courses.
In Spring 2000, when we studied their efforts, these faculty included Nick Pendergrass (electrical and computer engineering), John Dowd (physics), Renate Crawford (physics), Robert Kowalczyk (mathematics), and Raymond Laoulache (mechanical engineering).
Dr. N. (Nick) A. Pendergrass is presently Department Chair and Professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. A leader in the development and implementation of innovative educational programs and courses, he has been instrumental in getting the external and internal funding needed to effect significant change. While at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, Dr. Pendergrass has been the Associate Dean for Undergraduate Programs, the Assistant Dean for Industrial Relations and the Chair of the University Graduate Council. His current research interests include adaptive equalization with application to underwater acoustic telemetry, as well as digital signal processing including applications to adaptive noise reduction. Dr. Pendergrass received a B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering at the University of Missouri at Rolla in1967, and M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Purdue University in 1969, and a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1975.
Dr. John P. Dowd is a Chancellor Professor (Emeritus) at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. He received his B.S. and Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His research interest is in experimental particle physics. He was the principal investigator for the UMD particle physics group in their experimental program at Brookhaven National Laboratory and was part of the physics team that discovered the first credible evidence for the existence of exotic mesons. He has had a long time interest in pedagogical issues associated with introductory physics, particularly the laboratories, and introduced UMD's first computer based lab for introductory physics in 1983.
Renate J. Crawford received her Ph.D. in Physics from Kent State University in Ohio in 1993, working at the Liquid Crystal Institute. She started at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth in 1996 as a lecturer within the Physics Department and became an Assistant Professor in the department in 1998. She is actively involved in teaching innovations and outreach in addition to her research in soft condensed matter. She has published 16 refereed research publications, plus two invited and seven refereed education and outreach oriented publications. She has also edited educational outreach newsletters and conducted countless workshops in science education outreach to K-12 students and teachers. She has been actively involved in the teaching and innovations in IMPULSE since its first semester.
Dr. Robert E. Kowalczyk is a Professor of Mathematics at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. He received his B. A. in Mathematics from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and his Ph. D. in Applied Mathematics from Brown University. Dr. Kowalczyk's research interests include the development of educational software and the integration of technology into the mathematics classroom. He is the co-author of the mathematics software package TEMATH. His teaching philosophy stresses the use of active learning strategies in a cooperative learning environment.
Dr. Raymond N. Laoulache is an Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. He received his Ph.D. from Brown University, his MS and BS from Northeastern University. Dr. Laoulache's research interests are in the areas of multiphase fluid flow. He developed the engineering component of the integrated curriculum in the IMPULSE program, and served as the program director.
